


The One Where Chandler Isn't Gay

by dafna



Category: Friends
Genre: M/M, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2007, recipient:Bastet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-24
Updated: 2007-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-14 07:08:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/146711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dafna/pseuds/dafna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Joey tries to be helpful, Chandler tries to be patient and Monica makes pancakes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The One Where Chandler Isn't Gay

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Bastet in the Yuletide 2007 Challenge

1.

"Stop staring at me, Joey."

"I'm not staring."

Chandler lowered the newspaper. Joey quickly looked away. "Hey, is that plant dead?"

Chandler rolled his eyes and went back to reading about the Mets. Joey went back to staring at Chandler.

"You know," Chandler said from behind the newspaper, "Staring at me is not actually going to turn me gay."

"Hey," Joey said. "I didn't say 'gay', I said 'maybe bi'."

Chandler rolled his eyes again.

"I'm just saying, maybe the girls have a point about this -- " Joey waved his hand in the air. "This quality. You last had sex, what, 6 months ago?"

"Three weeks."

"Whatever," Joey said. "I'm just saying, maybe you should, you know, expand your horizons."

"My horizons are fine."

"Says the man who hasn't had sex in six months."

"Three weeks!"

2.

In retrospect, Chandler realized, he should have been the one to go to the video store.

" _Longtime Companion_? You realize everyone dies in the end, right?"

Rachel stopped munching on popcorn. "Joey, I don't want to see a depressing movie."

"I don't think they _all_ die -- " Joey stopped as he realized everyone in the room was staring at him. "OK, fine, excuse me for trying to be sensitive to the -- "

"I'M NOT GAY!"

Four heads swiveled from Joey to Chandler.

"Ha. No, seriously, guys, I'm really not. Seriously, look at my shirt. Could I be wearing a less gay outfit?"

Ross nodded. "That is a very heterosexual shirt."

Monica tilted her head. "Do straight guys say 'outfit', though?"

"Hey, even if Chandler isn't gay," Joey said, "I think it's good to learn more about their culture and stuff. Did you know Ronald Reagan was gay?"

"Uh, I don't think that's right, Joey," Ross said.

Chandler rubbed his hand over his forehead. "He's been leaving pamphlets on my bed -- 'Your Sexual Identity and You', 'How to Tell Your Friends What They Already Know' -- it's like living with Dr. Ruth."

Monica patted his knee in sympathy. "Why don't we watch one of the other movies?"

"I'll get it," Phoebe said, springing up from the floor. She walked to the counter and rummaged in the video store bag. "Oh, cool! _Tootsie_!"

3.

Chandler stopped dead in the middle of the bar. "Oh for the love of God."

Joey clapped him on the back. "I know, isn't it great?"

He grabbed two beers from the bartender and came back to Chandler, who was still standing in the middle of the room. "C'mon, let's snag a table."

"This is a gay bar. You've brought me to a gay bar."

Joey nodded, full of enthusiasm. "See, I realized we've been going about this all wrong. Too much thinking. Time to go where the action is." He paused as the waiter dropped a fresh bowl of peanuts on their table. Joey looked up at him and tilted his head. "How you doing?"

Chandler clenched his teeth. "Joey!"

"What? I'm just trying to blend in here."

"Well, go blend somewhere else, OK? I'm just going to drink myself to oblivion."

Joey stood up and patted him on the back. "Hey, whatever works for you. Just be careful who you go back to the wine cellar with."

Chandler raised his head from the table. "Dude, have you been here before?"

"Oh sure." Joey cast a practiced eye around the room, and shook his head. "Seems kind of slow tonight, actually, but it's been awhile, so maybe this is normal. I dunno, I never really stayed out front that long."

Chandler gaped up at him. "Uh, Joe, is there something you want to tell me?"

Joey turned back to the table. "What? Oh! I'm not gay." He laughed and sat back down, pulling the chair around so he could lean forward with his arms on top of the chair.

"Look, that blond guy over there is totally checking you out -- no, don't look!" Joey grabbed Chandler's arm. "Oh, OK, maybe I shouldn't have done that, I think he thinks we're together, maybe let's just wait 5 minutes and then I can storm off and he'll think we had a fight."

"Is the blood still pumping oxygen to my brain?" Chandler asked. "Cause I'm pretty sure I'm about 5 seconds from an embolism here."

"Seriously, you don't see anyone you might like?" Joey asked, looking around again. "Oh, what about the guy by the entrance? He looks like a male version of Janice."

"I thought Janice was the male version of -- oh, forget it," Chandler said, flopping his face down on the table again. "I'm clearly hallucinating this whole thing, anyway."

"OK, so you're going to be fine, though, right?" Joey stood up again. A young brown-haired man was smiling at him from across the room. "Cause uh, I got to go do this thing and ..."

Chandler turned his head so he could look up at Joey. "What happened to 'I'm not gay'?"

"Oh, I'm not, " Joey said confidently, patting Chandler on the arm. "But blowjobs don't count."

4.

Chandler woke up the next morning with a headache the size of New Jersey and a new resolution never to believe anything anyone ever told him again. Especially Joey.

He snuck out of the apartment, and spent the morning at Monica and Rachel's, where they listened sympathetically and fed him pancakes.

"Seriously, who says stuff like that? Did you know blowjobs don't count?" Chandler sunk lower into the couch, clutching a pillow.

Monica and Rachel exchanged glances over his head.

"Well honey," said Rachel, "if you think about it, Joey's probably been using that line on girls since he was 12, so it makes sense that at some point he'd start believing it himself, too."

"I mean, he is an actor," Monica said. "If you think about it, he probably gets hit on by guys all the time."

Chandler groaned into the pillow.

"So, really, he's just giving you the benefit of his expertise," Rachel said, sucking thoughtfully on the mixing spoon. "Like Ross, with his dinosaurs."

Monica and Chandler both turned their heads to look at her.

"What?" Rachel dropped the spoon in the sink. "I'm just saying, maybe see this as an opportunity to pick up some tips."

Chandler flopped back on the couch and stared up at the ceiling. "I'm so not ever going to convince anyone that I'm not gay, am I?"

Monica leaned down and straightened the pillow underneath his head. "We're not saying gay, exactly. Just, you know, maybe bi."

"Exactly," said Rachel.

5.

"Hey Chandler," Joey waved a fork at him. "My mom stopped by to drop off some food."

Chandler stood in the door, eyeing his roommate warily. Then his nose caught whiff of the yummy smells. "Is that lasagna?"

"Mmmmm," Joey nodded, his mouth full of food. "Still hot, too."

Chandler decided his day was looking up. He rummaged around the kitchen for a clean fork and joined Joey in front of the TV. "What are we watching? Oh dear god."

On the TV screen, the scene had shifted and what Chandler had thought was maybe an Army buddy movie, judging by the shot of soldiers running across a courtyard, was turning out to be, well, a very different kind of Army buddy movie. Chandler looked through his fingers as a dark-haired young man enthusiastically took it from both ends from two very large older men.

"Nice, huh?" Joey wasn't looking at him, thank god, but he was rubbing his groin in a lazy way that made Chandler blush anyway.

He closed his eyes. "Joey, for the last time, I'm really not -- "

"Oh, I believe you, man," Joey said. "That's what's so great. Cause now I can share some of the other parts of my porn collection."

Chandler cleared his throat. "OK, I know I shouldn't ask this, but why now exactly?"

"Dude," Joey turned away briefly from the TV screen to look at Chandler. "What am I, a jerk? If I showed you this stuff when I thought you were gay it would have been, like, sexual harassment or whatever."

Chandler nodded slowly. "But since now you know I'm straight ..."

"Right," said Joey, turning back to the TV. "Nothing wrong with two straight guys watching porn together."

"Um, OK." Chandler watched in silence as the two older men on the TV switched positions. "Want a beer?"

Joey waved the hand that wasn't down his pants in agreement, and Chandler walked awkwardly to the refrigerator. He grabbed two bottles and took the caps off. He handed one to Joey and held the other against his neck, appreciating the coolness of the glass against his skin.

Joey took a swig from his bottle, his mouth hollowing out as he swallowed.

Chandler realized he was staring and yanked his attention back to the screen, where a close-up was showing the young man's mouth hollowed out in exactly the same way, but more stretched out.

Chandler closed his eyes and cleared his throat again. He looked down at Joey.

"So, uh, Joe?"

Joey didn't so much answer as nod slightly, his attention still on the screen.

"So this rule about blowjobs not counting ..."

Joey turned to look up at him, eyes bright. "Dude, of course! Now that you're not gay we can totally do that!"

Chandler bit his lip. "Really? Because I'm really not ... hey!"

Joey had grabbed him by the waistband and undone his zipper all in the same move. He paused with his hands on Chandler's hips and looked up, his tone reassuring.

"Don't worry, man," Joey said. "This will be a totally heterosexual blowjob."

**Author's Note:**

> Original comments can be read [here](http://www.yuletidetreasure.org/archive/41/theone_cmt.html).


End file.
